Dwalin was in his brother's chambers, working alongside him as they made preparations for dinner. The two often dined together and when they did, it was always a joint effort. Unfortunately, this evening it seemed no matter what task he undertook, Balin found fault with his attempts.
"What are you doing?" Balin peeped around Dwalin's shoulder with a critical eye.
Dwalin barely turned to look at his brother. "Slicing the bread," he growled.
"This?" Balin picked up pieces of the loaf that had been crushed under the weight of Dwalin's hand before being wantonly cut in jagged strips. "Give me the knife before you do yourself a mischief. This bread has been butchered enough as it is."
Dwalin made no argument as Balin took the knife from him and finished preparing the bread and cheese plate. He stomped to the table and sat down in front of his mug of ale. Perhaps he had poured that wrong, too. He drank it down at once, just to check. Seemed fine. Probably he needed another to be sure.
Balin gave him a sharp look as he brought plates to the table before sitting down himself. "What's got your beard in such a bother tonight, Brother?"
Dwalin set to heaping food onto his plate. "Orcs."
Balin gestured for him to continue. "You'll have to give me a little bit more to go on than that."
Dwalin leaned back in his chair. "I thought we'd taken care of their filth years ago, but here we are, fighting the same battles. Their numbers increase, they're breeding wargs - this is no rogue band as Dáin wants to believe." How they could have so increased their numbers in such a short amount of time, Dwalin couldn't guess. Perhaps the orcs across the north had gathered together in the Grey Mountains just as the dwarves had done at Erebor. It was an unpleasant thought.
"They're breeding wargs?" The look of alarm on Balin's face was a reminder of the seriousness of the situation.
"Aye, I've got the proof of it where a young one took a bite of my leg two nights past." He winced, remembering the way the hideous thing had held onto him even after it was dead. He'd had to pry its jaws apart to free his leg. The sound of the warg's teeth snapping back together was still fresh in his mind. "If they're sending out the pups, they haven't any full grown but the two they bred. Still, it's ill news."
Dwalin continued eating, but Balin was on his feet in an instant. "What do you need for it? Has it been properly cleaned yet? I've got Óin's creams here somewhere..." He crossed the room and was going through the contents of a cupboard before Dwalin could explain.
"There's no need of that. It's already been seen to," he said, but Balin wasn't listening.
"Warg bites are serious business, you should have come to me immediately." Balin placed an assortment of jars on the top of the cupboard, muttering the names of their contents to himself before he knelt down again to find more. "I don't trust your method of cleaning such wounds."
"It isn't my method you need to worry about."
Balin paused to look at him. "I don't follow."
"I was seen to in the healing rooms." He scowled slightly, hating to admit such a thing. He'd not been tended by a healer in decades.
"The healing rooms?" Balin slowly returned to the dining table, his eyes serious as he watched him. He glanced down at Dwalin's legs, as though he could see the injury through his clothes. "How bad is the bite, then?"
Dwalin scoffed. "Not bad, but the healer wouldn't take my word for it. She's a stubborn little lass, that one."
Balin sat down in his chair again, apparently more at ease now that he knew Dwalin had not resorted to caring for his own warg bite. "You might have said that from the beginning."
"I thought I did."
"I can relax knowing you were seen to by Lív." Balin returned to filling his plate. "She was quite sought after in the Iron Hills. I've heard nothing but good things about her and her methods."
"She's pushy, I'll grant you that," Dwalin huffed.
Balin looked far too pleased. "She must be, else she never would have managed to get you to sit still for her."
Dwalin only grunted in response. Balin said no more and they both got down to the business of their meal. Dwalin's mind lingered on the healer who had tended him. Lív. He had seen her plenty of times before but he'd never given her any thought. She was a healer and a woman, and he needed neither.
He could yet see the ferocious look on her face when she grabbed his arm and demanded he let her tend to his injury. She had been beyond angry, her eyes blazing in her frustration with him. Now he could laugh about it, but in the moment he had been only shocked. Few dwarves regarded Dwalin with anything other than deference and a sort of trembling awe that had long grown tiresome. He was used to doling out glares and harsh words to the point that no one expected anything different of him. Lív, however, tolerated none of it.
A tiny, niggling thought grew in the back of his mind. "What do you mean, she was sought after?"
Balin gave him a blank look as he chewed a bite of cheese. "How's that?"
Now he'd asked it, Dwalin found he didn't actually want to clarify his question. "You said the healer was sought after in the Iron Hills."
"Oh, yes, Lív's skills were well known to the Halls and the villages of Men that lie about the area. We were very lucky that she chose to come to us." Balin chewed for another moment but then stopped and gave Dwalin a wry look. "What was it you thought I meant?"
He shook his head, completely done with the conversation. "Nothing."
Balin's knowing glance only made him focus his entire attention on finishing his supper as quickly as possible, silently berating himself for his foolishness all the while. One hundred seventy-three years and he still hadn't learned to keep his mouth shut around his brother.
#
"Please don't fuss over me, I can do all this myself." Lív took the teapot from Runa's hands and gestured that she should sit. The other dwarrowdam scowled at the breach of custom but did not argue. She sat down heavily and sighed as though it was the first time she had been seated in a week. Runa was exhausted from long hours working at her loom in Erebor's textile rooms.
"But I invited you." Runa's voice was thick with self-reproach. As host, custom required Runa to wait on Lív, not the other way around.
"And we have known each other far too long to stand on ceremony, have we not?" Lív poured tea for them both before sitting down herself. "I had the honor of helping you bring your children into the world, I think I can pour a little tea for you now and then."
Runa laughed as she took the offered cup. "That hardly counts as an honor. I was so miserable in childbirth, I would have accepted an orc midwife."
Laughter stuck in Lív's throat. The method of orc propagation had never crossed her mind before. They just somehow appeared - their evil habits were entirely unknown to her. "Do you suppose they have midwives?"
"No, because that would imply natural relations between orcs and such a thing doesn't bear thinking of." A scowl crossed Runa's face as she considered the matter. "I rather thought they came from bogs or some such thing."
"What came from bogs? I want to see a bog." Runa's son, Askel entered the sitting room, followed close behind by his sister, Astra. Their boundless energy seemed to fill the room, despite their small frames.
"We were speaking of orcs," Runa said, "not bogs."
"Oh, I don't care where orcs come from, all I care about is sending them to their graves." Askel staged a mock fight, thrusting and striking against an imaginary foe. Astra joined in, pulling an invisible arrow from her quiver and shooting into the recesses of the sitting room. Apparently they were completely overrun with the beasts, for this went on some time.
"You have quite the aim, Astra. Will you join your brother on the battlefield?" Lív asked.
The girl stopped her shooting and went to Lív's side. "I think I'd rather be a healer, like you." The sweetness of her comment warmed Lív's heart.
Astra then tilted her head to one side. "Or a princess, like Elin." This sentiment was rather less touching. Astra had been very much taken with young Princess Elin of Erebor of late, and much of her talk centered on the beauty of Elin's manners, hair, and dress.
"The latter will prove difficult, my dear," Runa said, "for we are not royal, nor would I encourage you to marry royalty."
Astra's little chin stuck out in defiance. "I can still be a princess." She was yet young enough to believe such things were bestowed as easily as a cloak or a toy. Considering that Elin herself had only had the title but four years, Astra's position on the matter made perfect sense.
"You could always marry an orc prince." Askel grinned at the angry scowl his comment elicited.
"You're the orc prince." Astra shoved her brother hard in the chest but her efforts to cause pain were lost on him. He would have been only too delighted for her to fight him in earnest.
"That's quite enough, you two. Run off so that Lív and I might have some peace and quiet." Runa gestured as though to sweep them from the room and looked pleasantly surprised when her children obeyed.
She sighed again, stretching her legs out before her. "How many years until they are of age again?"
"You would faint dead away if I were to tell you." Lív's echo of Captain Dwalin's words in the infirmary sent a smile across her face, which reaction did not go unnoticed by her friend.
"What? Have my children aged backwards somehow and I was none the wiser?" Runa's face took on a horrified expression at the thought.
"Fortunately they appear to be aging normally, albeit far too slowly for your taste."
"Don't I know it?" Runa sipped her tea and her gaze turned up to a charcoal drawing that hung over the fireplace mantel. It depicted a dwarf male in his prime, with full beard and carefully tended braids in his hair. "I only wish Asgrim could be here to see them."
Lív said nothing but reached out to pat her friend's hand. She still found herself at a loss for words on the death of Runa's husband. Asgrim had fallen when he rode out to Erebor with Dáin at the Battle of Five Armies four years ago. How could she, an unmarried dwarf, hope to console a widow and mother in her grief? Everything she thought to say sounded hollow and false. As she often did, she sought to offer comfort through her presence rather than her words.
"Now Askel wants to be trained as a warrior." The dismay in Runa's face was plain as day. "I'll not hinder him, though it's the last thing I want him to do. Why could he not become a tradesman? He would make a fine grocer, I'm sure."
Both women laughed at the idea of Askel being satisfied with life behind a market counter. The boy thrived on news of Erebor's armies and was counting the days until his twentieth birthday when he could begin proper training. Five years was nothing in the life of a dwarf, but to an eager young lad, it seemed an eternity.
Lív had been in Erebor three years already, and those had raced by as swift as the River Running. So, too, would the time pass for Askel, though he did not know it. "Perhaps he will change his mind before the time comes," she offered.
Runa looked at her as though she were daft. "A few years is not enough to change the mind of a stubborn dwarf, and you know it."
#
Lív strolled through Erebor's Greenway, a long path of green-tinted stone two flights above the main interior corridor. It wound along the edges of the cavern's walls, creating a balcony that looked down onto the thoroughfare. Its balusters and walls were covered in intricate runes and imagery carved into the stone. She often walked there, gazing into the bustling heart of the Mountain where dwarves scurried about on business of every kind. It was a sort of guilty pleasure to watch others engaged on such errands while she was at ease to let her own mind wander.
That day, it seemed whatever else she wanted to think of, her mind would drift back to Dwalin, Captain of Erebor. His imposing figure was known to her, for it could hardly be missed, and his name was revered as legend, but beyond this, Lív knew little of him. Stories about him spread through the halls - it was said orcs ran at the sight of him, and well could she believe it. He was indeed a fearsome sight to behold. He was unpleasant and menacing, even to dwarves.
Still, the last few days she could hardly keep him off her mind. Chalking it up to an inflated sense of intimacy created by her touch and their stubborn banter, she tried to put him out of her thoughts, but it wouldn't do. He was stuck there. She felt like an awkward dwarfling who had just discovered the wonders of the male species. The experience with Dwalin was far worse than any in her younger days, for he was no youth but a man grown, with long years of life behind him.
There he was again - this time in the flesh. Her heart beat a little quicker as she looked over the railing of the Greenway to see his familiar figure looming over the crowds that rushed by. It was odd to see him out in the open, among the tradesmen and everyday folk of Erebor. She imagined he spent most of his time in the armory or the training rooms, probably with a weapon in hand. That he could have any business at all in the marketplace was strangely amusing.
Leaning her elbows against the railing, she indulged a moment and just watched him as he lumbered along the corridor below. One of the tallest dwarves in the Mountain, and with a bald head covered in distinctive tattoos, he was easy to keep track of among the rest of Erebor's residents.
He was stopped by someone from the market who seemed especially delighted to see him. The merchant's arms flailed about wildly as he engaged him in excited conversation. Even from a distance, Dwalin's discomfort was evident. She guessed he didn't much appreciate being spoken to in such a way, and she smiled down at the awkwardness of the scene.
At that moment, Dwalin looked up and his gaze went straight to her. The smile froze on her face. What was this, an old warrior's trick to know when he was being watched? Despite a twinge of embarrassment, she couldn't seem to draw her eyes away. It would have been nothing to be caught looking at him were she not perched high above, half in shadows, as though spying.
He looked down again and, saying something to the merchant, departed. He had certainly seen her but gave no indication of it. She felt strangely deflated, although she could not say what else she had expected of him. Binding his leg had not exactly put them on friendly terms.
She remained where she was, lazily taking in the scene below and trying not to give too much weight to such a meaningless encounter, when Dwalin himself stepped out onto the pathway not far from her. That he had left the merchant to find her on the Greenway was surprising to say the least, but she tried not to let her astonishment show.
He stopped at her side and leaned against the railing, his back to the hall below. "Do all healers have such a knack for watching people unawares?" His accusation carried the slightest lilt of amusement to it.
"Of course. I have to be able to observe my patients' progress unimpeded. I never know if my inquiries will be given a straight answer by some of the tougher dwarves." The smile she gave him was all innocence. "How is your leg, by the way?"
Dwalin snorted, which she took to be mirth rather than derision. "The leg's fine. No trouble at all."
She grinned at him. "I'm glad to hear it. I will write that comment down in my ledger next to warg pup bites - no trouble at all."
His shoulders shook in silent laughter. "You are some kind of lass." She cocked her head to one side, waiting for him to elaborate, but he didn't. His grey eyes sparkled as he looked back at her. "What are you doing up here?"
"Walking the Greenway." She gestured along the pathway's loop, though of course he knew of it - and all the ways to reach it. "Watching folk come and go. Just thinking, I suppose." Just what she had been thinking of could go unsaid.
He nodded, but she got the feeling he didn't quite believe her. "How are my warriors who are yet in your care?"
Of course, he sought her out for a report on his soldiers. Strangely, this did not bring the relief she expected. "They are progressing well."
He raised his eyebrows, indicating her answer wasn't quite satisfactory, so she elaborated. "Búri is the worst off, but that's not unusual considering his injury. His shoulder is improving slowly, but I see progress. The others are mending as well as may be expected."
"Will Búri need to delay his wedding?" Dwalin had hundreds of warriors under his command - that he knew of Búri's wedding at all spoke volumes of the dwarf standing next to her.
"I hope not, although it will be easier to say as the day draws closer." They had yet nearly a month before Búri and Eir were to be wed, as the happy couple continually reminded her.
Spring weddings had once been traditional in the Iron Hills, but King Dáin had given leave to abandon all such marital customs in the hopes of increasing his kingdom's numbers. Betrothals now might last anywhere from the traditional full year to just one week, depending on the couple's eagerness to marry. Búri and Eir had been betrothed only a few months.
"He knows it is not certain?"
"Oh, yes, he and Eir ask me every day if he will be ready or not. I should think they would be more concerned about whether or not he will regain full use of his arm." Thanks to the Battle of Five Armies, many dwarves had been left with scars, limps, and missing appendages. Búri would be in good company if it turned out he were permanently lamed.
"I expect it's easier to think of one day rather than the string of all the rest of his days laid out before him." There was a bitterness to Dwalin's words that surprised Lív. She suspected there was more to his comment than idle talk but would not dare ask him about it.
"We are keeping a watchful eye on him," was the best she could think to say.
In the silence, they simply looked at each other for a moment. As unsettling as his attempts to ignore her in the healing rooms had been, his seeming inability to look away from her now was even more so. His grey eyes were startling in how they pierced her, not for any sort of harshness but that they seemed so perceptive. She felt he learned everything there was to know about her in that single glance. What did he think of his assessment?
She broke herself from these thoughts before they could carry her away. "I really must get back to the healing rooms. If you'll excuse me, Captain Dwalin."
"Actually, if you don't mind, I'd like to accompany you. I should pay Búri and the others a visit." Despite his size and obvious strength, he made his offer in such a way that Lív felt free to refuse him if she so desired.
She didn't want to refuse him. "I would like that."
"Is this a habit of yours to walk the Greenway?" he asked as they set off along the path. She had to add a little skip to her walk in order to match his stride, which he soon slowed.
"Yes, I like it up here. It's peaceful without being quite isolated."
He gave her a sidelong glance. "Do you know what it's for?" She had to admit she didn't. "Time was, the Greenway was used only by the great kings of Erebor. They could watch over their subjects in privacy."
It made sense - from the vantage of the Greenway, one could see the whole of the main corridor. No one could go in or out unseen. If it had originally been intended for the king's use, that might explain why no one ever walked there. "Is it quite all right for me to use it?"
He barked a laugh. "Would it stop you if it weren't?"
"You make it sound as though I am the obstinate one between us." The look she gave him was friendly, if pointed.
He laughed again, a soft rolling sound from his chest. "I don't deny that I'm willful."
"For example, if you would rather let a wound go untreated?" she offered.
"I wasn't thinking of that particularly, no." The glance he gave her was unreadable. "And my wounds never go untreated. I told you, I tend them myself."
"What is in your arsenal of remedies, may I ask?" Since he had first confessed to treating his own wounds, she had been curious to know just what methods he used. He certainly seemed no worse for wear.
"Hmm," he rumbled, "a few ointments and salves. Bandages, of course. Needle and thread."
"Needle and..." She stopped in the corridor just to gape at him, utterly indignant. "You've sewn up your own wounds?"
After going on another pace, he turned around slowly to face her. "It's not that hard." He sounded as though he were speaking of something as simple as braiding hair or tying one's boot.
Lív stared, trying to gauge his facial expression, but he seemed to have just the two - serious, and deadly serious. "I can't tell if you're teasing me or not."
He might have smiled at her. "You'll know when I'm teasing."
She wasn't at all sure she would. She caught up to him and they continued on to the infirmary. Once again, she was torn between feeling disgruntled at his disregard for healers, and being amazed that he could tolerate closing his own wounds. She stole glances at him in the corridor, trying to figure him out. He was made of stronger stuff than most, that much was certain.
Once inside the healing rooms, they parted as he visited with his soldiers and she checked on the same. Seven of the warriors from the last skirmish had been left to recover under her care. These seven generally had cheerful dispositions and a propensity to pester her with all manner of pointless banter as she made her rounds. She checked on Búri first, who, as she had told Dwalin, was healing the slowest of the group. He was also the least inclined to coy comments about Lív, for he was betrothed and could find no interest in any female but his beloved. As such, he was the most pleasant to speak with.
"How are you feeling today?" She felt his forehead for signs of fever.
"My shoulder still gives me pain, but I think it's less than before." The hopeful smile he gave her betrayed that he didn't fully believe his assertion.
"What about your arm?"
He shook his head. "It isn't painful, though my fingers still feel odd." This was worrisome, but it had only been a few days since he'd been injured.
She noticed Dwalin as he visited each warrior at his cot. She couldn't hear their conversations, but the lads' admiration for their captain was plain on their faces. His presence must mean a great deal to them.
"Miss Lív?" Búri's voice drew her out of her own thoughts.
"I'm sorry?"
"Do you think I may return to my chambers soon?" His hopeful smile returned, though it seemed he knew he was not yet ready to be released.
"I would like to keep watch a few more days, at least," she told him. "Rest assured, I will not keep you from Eir a moment longer than I must."
He seemed pleased with this response. She briefly touched his arm in farewell before moving to the next young dwarf in her care.
"Mistress Lív," Frár said from his cot, "I'm awfully thirsty today. There's only one thing that can cure it."
She knew what that cure was, for Frár had asked for it each day he had been cooped up with her and the others in the healing rooms.
"I think my wounds would heal much faster if I were allowed an ale." He gave her a rakish grin. "Just one?"
"One?" She raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"Well, one each day would be much appreciated." His grin widened as he pleaded with her.
"I will see what I can do." She put off his question as though she, herself, were not the one in charge of whether or not he was granted his much longed for ale. She did not allow ale in the healing rooms because when combined with the pain relieving herbs she used, it led to grogginess and disorientation. This reason was sound enough to her, but lads such as Frár always held out hope that they would be granted immunity from her rule.
"I know what would make my wounds heal faster," said Iari from the middle of the room. He sat up in his cot, propped by pillows, and looked at Lív with bright eyes. Like Búri, he had a shoulder wound, but his had been pierced with an orc sword rather than flayed with a mace.
Whatever pains it gave him, they never seemed to hamper his endless flirtation. For three full days he had given her nothing but pert remarks and saucy glances. Lív knew his advances were all show - she was well-versed in the type of male who enjoyed wiling away his time in the infirmary with idle nonsense aimed in her direction. Still, she little liked the vulgar comments and tone of disrespect he made free to use with her.
She went to his bedside to inspect his wound and feel his forehead for fever, ignoring the wanton stares he cast her way. His injury was worrying for being so difficult to properly clean, but so far the wound had shown no signs of festering. After satisfying herself that his injury was in good condition, she rewrapped his shoulder. Dwalin had joined her and stood on the other side of Iari's cot, but it seemed the younger dwarf had been too busy making eyes at Lív to notice his captain's approach.
"If you will see what you can do for Frár, can you not do the same for me and my desires?" The look on his face was positively wolfish.
"I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for your desires, Iari." She would not even indulge him with a smile - it only made him all the more vivid in his descriptions of those desires. "My interest is strictly in your shoulder."
"I couldn't interest you in a trade?" The grin he flashed her was not at all agreeable. "You heal me of my wounds, and I heal you of your maidenhood."
Dwalin clapped his large hand on the lad's good shoulder, digging his fingers into the flesh there. Iari winced under his captain's grip as Dwalin leaned down to whisper in his ear. Lív could not hear what he said, but it must have been unpleasant, for Iari's face went ashen, then green. She wondered whether it might have been wise to bring him a bucket, but he managed to hold himself together.
Dwalin stood straight again but his hand remained firmly clenched on Iari's shoulder.
"Forgive me, Miss Lív." Iari did not seem to have the heart to look at her but kept his eyes turned down into his lap. "I won't make such indecent comments again."
Dwalin roughly patted Iari's shoulder a few times, jostling him about on the cot. "There's a lad," he said, apparently in good humor, in spite of Iari's crestfallen appearance. He nodded to Lív before continuing on to the bedside of the next warrior.
"Your shoulder is improving, Iari." She chose to act as though she hadn't heard his rude remarks or seen Dwalin's whispered response. "I think you will be able to return to your chambers in another day or two."
Iari nodded and swallowed hard. "Thank you, Miss Lív." He lay back on his pillows and feigned sleep. The change in his attitude was a welcome surprise. She looked to Dwalin, who watched her from a few cots over, and gave him a small, crooked smile of thanks. Ever so slightly, he inclined his head to her in acknowledgement.
The nobility of warriors, indeed.
